THE BURNHAMS
When the simple breakfast was over, Mrs. Burnham bade the lads remain
indoors for a moment, saying:
“I want to explain to you, Carlos and Carlota, why I had you make this
change of clothing. One reason is, you will feel better for putting on
fresh, even if plainer garments. I do not suppose you always wore the
one costume when you were at home, did you?”
Carlota laughed and replied:
“No, indeed! We had plenty of changes, though all were made the same.”
“So I judged. Also that, probably, there are no other children in this
country attired in just that fashion.”
“My father thought it was the very best sort of dress for us,” returned
the little girl, earnestly.
“Dear child, I do not doubt it for a moment, and I wish nobody need
be more hampered by their clothes than you have been. I see, too, that
those simple skirts you have on now are a burden to you, but you’ll
soon get used to them. Maybe soon, also, you’ll return to your own home
and habits.”
As she said this she sighed and Teddy shrewdly remarked:
“She doesn’t not believe it, though. She allays bweaves herself
that-a-way when she doesn’t not sepect fings.”
They all laughed and the mother exclaimed:
“Why, Teddy! How observant! Yet small boys are not the truest prophets.
There are other reasons why it is better you should keep your kid
garments--”
“Kid, kidder, kiddest. Kid garments, garments of a kid. A pair of
kids,” mumbled Jack who had, by this time, quite forgotten the silent
rebuke of Carlota’s eyes. Carlos heard the monologue and was inclined
to resent it but, instead, found himself listening to Mrs. Burnham.
“So I will wrap them carefully, and mark them with your names and
addresses. You should keep them with you. The blankets and the other
things which the troopers left with you at Leopard are here in my
room. They may be useful to you, and aren’t apt to wear out soon. The
blankets are the finest I’ve ever seen, though some of the Indians who
pass here, on the march, have those nearly like them.”
“They were gifts to our mother. They were woven by some Navajo women
to whom she’d been kind. She was always kind to everybody. My father
says that she nursed the sick, gave drink to the thirsty, food to the
hungry, and rest to the weary. Oh! dear lady, I think you must be like
her!” cried Carlota, impulsively.
Letitia Burnham’s eyes filled. She had already taken the motherless
wanderer into her inmost heart and had welcomed her as a gift from God
which she was thankful to retain, even for a little time. Yet she was
greatly concerned for her small guests, knowing how slight a thing may
turn the current of a life, and how doubtful it was that news of their
whereabouts would at once bring their absent father.
Before he had retired, Mr. Burnham had promptly acted upon the
suggestions in Captain Sherman’s brief note. But, would the telegrams
and advertisements reach the eyes for which they were intended? And
the Captain’s information had been very scant.
Adrian Manuel had gone “north”, but nobody knew where. The children had
never been told the name of their great aunt, Mrs. Sinclair, nor even,
until the Disbrows’ arrival at Refugio, of her existence. Then Miguel
had spoken of her as “a wicked old woman”, and had honestly considered
her such--simply because she gave annoyance to his master. Neither
child had mentioned the lawyers save as “enemies”, and the further
cross-examination which the Captain had intended making in the presence
of the station-master--for their mutual benefit--had been forgotten in
his hurried departure elsewhere. After he had parted from his little
charges he had remembered this fact, but trusted to the station-agent’s
intelligence to learn what more there was to know.
Moreover, for some time past, Mrs. Burnham had lived in expectation of
a removal, and this fact, added to the foregoing, made the children’s
future a doubtful one.
Household duties were simple in that narrow cabin, and though there was
always sewing to be done, that could be taken out of doors. So, as
soon as the place was in order, Mrs. Burnham took Carlota’s hand and
said:
“Come, I have one other treasure to show you. Bare as this isolated
station may seem to you I have learned to love it. We have lived here
for some years and were only temporarily at Leopard. I didn’t wish to
go there and was glad to come back, because of--that!”
Carlota’s gaze followed the pointing finger. At some little distance
from the cluster of buildings was a small heap of stones. Around the
heap there had been set a slender fence of tule reeds, strung together
by strips of the same growth. A cactus, larger than ordinary and loaded
with brilliant flowers, stood at one end of the enclosure while at the
other a struggling tree made a bit of shade. A rude shed had been fixed
beyond the spot, and within this a bench, whereon Mrs. Burnham and
Carlota now sat down.
“What lovely blossoms! We have some cacti of that kind in our mother’s
garden.”
“This one blooms--in my child’s.”
The girl looked up in surprise, but instantly understood. She slipped
her hand into the mother’s and softly asked:
“Was it long ago?”
“Five years. She would have almost been a woman now and I often think
what she would have been to me as such. Then I look abroad and am glad
she is not here to suffer the intolerable loneliness of the plains. The
young are not fond of solitude. Her name was Mary.”
“Why, my own mother’s name! I’m glad of that. Maybe she wouldn’t have
suffered. Anyway, you know she doesn’t now. My father says that though
our mother was so very, very happy on this earth, she is far happier
now, with God.”
“Dear little comforter, so I try to believe of my own daughter,” said
the woman, laying her hand on Carlota’s head.
“Was that her cactus?”
“Yes. She set it here. Her father planted the tree, which a brakeman
brought her from a distant station. There were other things here, too,
but they are gone. At first, I felt too desolate to care for them, and,
when I had rallied so that I could, it was too late. Yet since it was
here that she had made her garden it was here I had her put to rest.”
Carlota looked curiously at the stones. Away off in the distance,
also, she could see beside the track another of the dead cattle which
had so frightened her while on the hand-car. Mrs. Burnham noticed the
glance and answered it:
“We had to put the tule reeds as a precaution against the coyotes.”
The girl shivered and exclaimed:
“How dreadful! Yet the stones don’t make any difference. The dear God
knows about her, just the same. And--and--the cactus is very beautiful.”
“Yes, dear, yes. ‘The cactus is very beautiful.’ There is no life so
dark or barren but may have its cactus bloom. Now since you have told
me all about yourself I’ll tell you what is needful you should know
about this Burnham family. It will do for the ‘story’ that Teddy is
always begging.”
She smiled upon the little man who now approached, with his fat hands
full of a rare yellow blossom which he offered to Carlota.
“Posies, girl, for you.”
“Thank you, _niño_. You’re a darling, darling baby! I do love flowers
better than--than almost anything, I guess.”
Teddy climbed up beside her and watched as, almost unconsciously, she
began to pull one of the strange blooms to pieces.
“Girl! No, no! You mustn’t bweak them. It might hurt them, my muvver
says.”
“I’m not hurting it, Teddy. See? Little by little, I take it apart,
gently, for I’m trying to find out its name. Though, maybe, Señora, you
know it?”
“No. I’ve not seen them often. But--at your age--do you understand
botany?”
“I don’t understand it--much. Only, most always, if I have a new plant
I can find its class and, often, its genus. Like this. Don’t you know?”
“Once I knew. I was a teacher in my girlhood.” The sight of the child
analyzing the desert flower had carried the exile’s thoughts back over
many years, to a pleasant New England schoolroom and a class of eager
maidens who learned from her. Yet she promptly banished her momentary
regret, reflecting: “The cactus is very beautiful! And my blessings do
outnumber my deprivations.”
It was a wonderfully skillful young hand which dissected the unknown
flower and, when it lay with all its parts separated and arranged,
Mrs. Burnham’s interest was as great as Teddy’s. Eager to see, he
thrust his dark head between Carlota and her “subject” in a way that
hindered her study, so she left its finishing until another time.
“I’ll put the rest of the blossoms in my box, Teddy, but I’m quite sure
it’s an orchid. I think it is a ‘Plantanthera.’ I do miss my father so
about flowers. He knows everything and everyone there is, I s’pose.”
“I thought that looked like a ‘botany-box,’ when I saw Dennis take it
off the car, last night. Yet, I could hardly believe I saw one--here.”
“Oh! yes. We always take our things. Carlos has his hammer. My father
teached him, taught him, I mean, about stones, ’cause he doesn’t care
so much for flowers. Now, please tell me the story. I love stories as
well as Teddy, prob’ly. Old Marta knows heaps of them but Guadalupo
knows even more. Beg pardon. I’ll stop talking and listen.”
Yet Mrs. Burnham hesitated a little, trying to decide how much it was
necessary Carlota should know; though impelled by the girl’s abounding
sympathy to talk freely of matters usually kept to herself. Carlota
helped her, laughingly:
“I know. When I want to tell a story and the words don’t come right
away I always begin: ‘Once upon a time’.”
The lady smiled, took a fresh needleful of thread, turned the stocking
she was darning, and began:
“Well, ‘once upon a time,’ my husband’s father died, very suddenly,
leaving behind him a large debt to a rich woman from whom he had
borrowed money to carry on his business--that failed. His two children,
Teddy’s father and his Aunt Ella, determined to pay this debt and clear
their father’s name and honor. She became a trained nurse and is now
in a New York hospital. She has a fine position and good salary and is
steadily putting aside part of it, toward her share of the debt. But
she works very, very hard and it is a fresh trouble to Mr. Burnham that
he isn’t able to provide for himself. He came west to engage in mining,
and has made several ventures in that line. Until now none of them have
turned out as he hoped, so he took this position till he saw his way
to a fresh start. He thinks he sees now the way to leave here very
soon. I hope that before we go your friends will have come for you. If
not, you may have to be left with other strangers, and I thought best
to prepare you; and you understand, now, why I wish you to keep all of
your belongings together. But--that’s all. If you could so soon become
to me like one of my own, why shouldn’t you to another just as easily.”
It was like Carlota to think first of others, nor had she fully
realized the result to herself if her new friends departed before she
was “called for.” The word “mining” had roused familiar ideas and she
exclaimed:
“Oh! I do wish my father was here to see about Mr. Burnham’s mine! He
would know in a minute if it was a good one!”
“But, deary, we have no mine--yet, nor the slightest interest in one.
We are merely ‘prospecting’--”
“Beg pardon. Oh, that’s what my father does!”
“Has he a mine of his own?” asked the settler’s wife, with almost
pitiful eagerness.
“No, indeed! He doesn’t wish one. It’s just his business to--to
location them. I’d better ask Carlos, or you would. He knows more
about it than I do.”
Then, as the rumble of an approaching train startled her, she sprang
up and frantically waved her hand to Carlos and Jack, who were hunting
gophers on the plain beyond the track.
“Oh! they’ll be rolled on and killed! The train--the cars--my brother!”
Mrs. Burnham rose and took the little girl’s hand.
“There, there, child! No trains can hurt you or anybody if you keep
away from the rails. Try to look upon them as the pleasantest things of
our days, and you’ll soon get over your fear. Now, you and Teddy play
by yourselves. I see that Mr. Burnham wishes to speak with me, before
this train arrives.”